William Claude Rains

 William Claude Rains (November 10, 1889 – May 30, 1967)

Rains was an English film and stage actor whose career spanned 46 years. After his American film debut as Dr. Jack Griffin in The Invisible Man (1933) he played in classic films like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Wolf Man (1941), Casablanca (1942, as Captain Renault), Notorious (1946), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). He was a Tony Award winning actor and was a four-time nominee for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, but never won. Rains was considered to be "one of the screen's great character stars" with an extraordinary voice who was, according to the All-Movie Guide, "at his best when playing cultured villains". During his lengthy career he was greatly admired by many of his contemporaries such as Bette Davis, Vincent Sherman, Ronald Neame and Albert Dekker all of whom became close family friends. Rains also inspired many younger actors such as John Gielgud, Charles Laughton and Richard Chamberlain. Rains remained active as a character actor in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in films and as a guest in television series. Two of his late screen roles were as Dryden, a cynical British diplomat in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and King Herod in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), his last film. In his final years, Rains decided to write his memoirs and engaged the help of journalist Jonathan Root to assist him. Rains' declining health delayed their completion and with Root's death in March 1967 the project was never completed.

Rains died from an abdominal hemorrhage in Laconia on 30 May 1967, aged 77, his daughter said "And, just like most actors, he died waiting for his agent to call." He is buried at the Red Hill Cemetery in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. He designed his own tombstone which reads "All things once, Are things forever, Soul, once living, lives forever".